This was my first year as a Councillor representing
Greenhead Ward. Whilst I have lived in
the ward for 35 years I still took time to get to know the people who live in
the ward and the local groups that work in the ward. I work full time as a councillor.
With my colleagues, Mohan Sokhal and Sheikh Ullah, we spent
almost every weekend out in the ward knocking on doors, offering help and
getting to know the issues that face people on a daily basis. We work very hard
as a team together.
When I first became a councillor for the ward there were two
Children’s Centres operating in the ward, Birkby and Paddock but as the cuts
imposed upon local authorities started to impinge on this service the way they
delivered has had to change and now the Paddock centre has become part of the
school in Paddock and the Birkby centre is run in a different way. We continue to support the valuable work
undertaken by this service.
Local Community Group and Organisations
I have attended the meeting of :
Council Meetings and Committees
I have had a very high attendance level at:
I also represented the council on quite a few outside bodies such as
Training or learning I have undertaken
With my colleagues, Mohan Sokhal and Sheikh Ullah, we spent
almost every weekend out in the ward knocking on doors, offering help and
getting to know the issues that face people on a daily basis. We work very hard
as a team together.
It has been a very busy year. Our ward work kept us very busy and then we
also worked with local groups and community centres to help secure their
futures and the projects that they are working on. Marsh Forum, Paddock Village Hall Trust and
the Friends of Greenhead Park and Norman Park are all well-established bodies
that we keep in touch with to offer support and help when needed. The Friends of Birkby Library we helped to
establish as the library in Birkby/ Fartown lost paid staff hours. We have
helped to establish a volunteer’s bank to help make up this short fall. WE have also worked with TRAs and in
particular the Greenhead and Trinity Street TRA.
When I first became a councillor for the ward there were two
Children’s Centres operating in the ward, Birkby and Paddock but as the cuts
imposed upon local authorities started to impinge on this service the way they
delivered has had to change and now the Paddock centre has become part of the
school in Paddock and the Birkby centre is run in a different way. We continue to support the valuable work
undertaken by this service.
We have also been working with the residents of the
Hillhouse area to establish a community group that can help to invest some
money in the area on green initiatives that has accrued from a solar panel
scheme installed some years ago. The
excess electricity generated by the solar panels that were fitted to houses in
the area has been held by the Council to be spent on green initiatives.
We organised an event called “You and Your Community” which
was held to enable community groups to apply for small grants to help with
their work. This was very successful and we awarded £2000 pounds in total to
several local groups.
We were also instrumental in making sure that council
tenants in the ward benefitted from an Environmental Schemes Budget that
Kirklees Neighbourhood Housing award. We
put forward a couple of schemes to improve the environment that were
successful. And finally, we also sought to help improve the environment and
safety by using monies allocated by the District Committee on several scheme
schemes in the ward.
The challenges this coming
year will be to ensure that our communities are protected as much as
possible from the cuts in service that we are being forced to make by the
government cuts that are being handed down to local government. Already we have seen a reduction or changes
in the way services are provided. The
highways budget has been slashed which has meant that road repairs are taking
longer to implement, there has been changes to the way waste collections are
organised and grass cutting and weed control has been reduced. Thank fully Greenhead Park remains a priority
for maintenance but other areas in the
ward are now no longer maintained as well as they were. But more is to come in cuts to Children’s
Services and the Libraries and Museums Service.
As a resident and a councillor I abhor these cuts that we are being
forced to make and take no pleasure from it.
But on a positive note we are pleased to see that a new
Primary School has been opened on Luck Lane and look forward to another new
school being opened in the next couple of years in the north of Huddersfield
which will also serve the children on our ward.
Local Community Group and Organisations
I have attended the meeting of :
-
Friends of Greenhead Park
- Friends of Norman Park
- Marsh Community Forum
- Paddock Village Hall Trust
- Trinity And Greenhead TRA
- Hillhouse Community Group
- Friends of Birkby Library
Council Meetings and Committees
I have had a very high attendance level at:
-
Full Council Meetings
- Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee and one of its panels
- Policy Committee, which I chaired, and I chaired one of its Working Groups
- Strategic Planning Committee and Huddersfield Planning Committee
- Huddersfield District Committee
- And I also sat of Licensing and Appeals Panels
I also represented the council on quite a few outside bodies such as
-
Kirklees Theatre Trust
- Kirklees Music School
- Kirklees Community Association
- Kirklees Development Company (now Dissolved)
Training or learning I have undertaken
Whilst I was new to Greenhead Ward this year I had
previously been a councillor for the Crosland Moor and Netherton Ward. However,
I did undertake much of the New Councillor Induction programme as things change
so rapidly I wanted to keep up to date.
I have also undertaken most if not all modules of the New
Council training provided for us.
I also attended Planning and Licensing training which is
required for members of those committees
